It is not all the time though which is weird. Like right now, I am still downloading games from both Origin (downloading Crysis 2 now) and Steam, watching on Netflix, and able to browse the net just fine. Of course it is slow, but it is functional now.

It is not like I am doing anything special. There are people out there that can download ONE THING from Steam and STILL browse the internet. Why do I need to download all these limiters or manually reduce my download limit and Joe Smith does not? If I take a laptop to my friends house and DO THE SAME THING, it will still let me browse the internet just fine without any DNS could not resolve errors.

Also, why is it AFTER I wait 10 minutes, and the game or whatever large file is STILL downloading at MAX speed, that sites begin to work again? After I posted my issue, I still left Crysis 3 downloading but I was able to browse the internet 10 minutes later. Yes it was still at 2.5 MB/s and I was able to browse just fine after waiting 10 minutes. And I am not an idiot, I know it will be slow. but like I said, 80% of the time I can still browse the internet without getting those weird DNS errors or website errors (like that YouTube pic I showed).

And my max is the same as yours. Around 3.5 so I am not maxed out on the 2.48 MB/s download.

Most downloads do not SATURATE the pipe for extended periods.. When you saturate the pipe, and then try to look up something this is when you have dns issues. If you get a timeout looking for a record, its quite possible your dns client/forwarder will not ask again for a specific amount of time. If he got a timeout last time he checked because your pipes were full.

Here is the thing how much is your upload vs your download. When you download via tcp be it a large file, be it a image on a website there are acks sent back from the client that you got pieces of the tcp transmission, as you get these packets acks sent back saying got those, send more, etc. If your upload pipe gets full just sending acks, then its kind of hard to go and ask for say a dns query. So if you upload pipe is so small that it is full just sending acks when you download at high speed then sure you can have problems.

I would really look into setting up QoS so that you can setup dns to be of higher priority. And what router do you have? Its quite possible that its crap?? And it cannot handle number of users/bandwidth..

Also keep in mind normally with a http download your browser will limit the number of connections to the server and in a sense keep space open for other connections.. If your using something like downloadthemall or something to download it allows you to sat your pipe, but also can cause issues like your having because the pipe is full which you normally don't see if just using a browser to grab the file via http and using limited sessions.

Also are you wireless?? Wireless is CRAP when saturating the bandwidth available because its shared.. And very limited bandwidth, if your on G and you have over 20Mbps isp connection - even if just you, your wireless is not going to be able to maintain that sort of connection sustained -- max G is about 18 to 23mbps actual useable bandwidth while one connection is a wired, etc.

Here is the thing, if your PIPE is full, be it 10 seconds or 10 minutes - you can not expect to look up new dns, or grab other things off other sites if your pipe is full! When you stream say a video from youtube - it should NOT saturate your pipe..

Look

Here is me watching a video on youtube -- see the way my internet bandwidth is being used

Now compare that use of bandwidth to when I saturate the pipe using downloadthemall and grabbing a LARGE file.. Notice how its almost a flat line at the MAX of my pipe..

When I try to do something when pipe is like that then yeah its going to be slow doing anything else, dns queries could quite easy fail or timeout, etc..

But as you can see while I am viewing youtube -- my ping times are normal, since I am not SATURATING my connection

So how are you downloading?? Over wireless? Are you using something other than a browser to download, have you tweaked your browser to use more sessions? Installed any other sort of tweak software to manipulate or speed up your connections?

How come there are people that can download from Steam (and 80% of my case as well) and not experience any issues? But every once and a while, for me it will cause the issues I am referring to. Today everything is fine!

Its not magic or anything, if your pipe is FULL then **** is going to be slow or broken, period. If its not full, then good for you and and you won't have an issue.

Why do you think so many users have or had issues with p2p when first came out, because they would let the client fill up their upload pipe vs limiting it to say 60 to 85%.. Kind of hard to browse the internet even if your only using half your download pipe if your upload is full, and you can not do queries for dns, or even http gets to the server after you have looked up its IP, etc. This is why when using p2p you limit its upload to a % of your pipe and you can use it same time your doing other things.

And when you download from steam, is your pipe full? If so then the packets have to wait in line - there is no way around it, other then QoS to be able to manipulate the line

Not a steam user, but I doubt its designed to saturate the pipe when downloading.. Your local cache file was pretty much empty - so for you to go anywhere that was not in that file, or your browser cache you would have to look up dns.

So do a test when your pipe is full try and do a dns query, to your router -- if it does not answer, maybe its BUSY moving your files that its dns forwarder blows.. You have to do the query via nslookup or dig so you can see what your router sends back.. Most clients will timeout in less than 2 seconds. So if longer than that your out of luck - so how busy is your router?

I can guarantee you that anyone!! That saturates their pipes is going to have issues, happens in enterprise networks just the same, pipe is saturated there is not much you can do but wait til its not saturated or limit what is causing be it with QoS or bandwidth limits, etc.

As I said I don't use steam -- but quick look, seems like you have ability to limit its download speed. Have you tried that?

I do not think it is a pipe saturation thing. Like I said, when I go to my friend's house, we can BOTH be downloading from various sources and STILL get the DNS names to resolve just fine.

Why doesn't every single person have this issue? Nobody I know has this issue except me. And I do not download as much as some of them do.

Last night I was using Chrome on my iPad. It was at midnight. No other computers or devices were on and I had nothing downloading on the iPad. I still received the DNS error randomly and had to wait 10 minutes.

Plus, I have 30Mb/s internet. 2.48MB/s would not saturate the pipe (Steam can get up to 2.8 or even 3 MB/s). And it is not just from steam that causes this issue. If I download something from any website using any browser, if I am using FTP to manage my site's files, downloading on a console or anything that involves long transfer, this issue will occur. And again, it is not all the time. If it was a pipe saturation thing, why does it work fine when Steam is downloading at 3 MB/s sometimes? MORE than my 2.48 MB/s issue I posted before.

Because as I showed you don't normally saturate your line!! I can download lots of things and it does not fill the pipe.. Look watching youtube video, downloading very fast 2.2MB linux distro and still pinging opendns with no latency!

As you can see from graph on my router, my pipe is NOT full nor is my upload pipe full, etc. So everything works fine.. See the ping times to googledns.

If your seeing 500ms ping results - then your LINE is SATURATED!! Be it at your end or possible the isp or path to where your going, etc.. If you see high ping times, do a traceroute where to the the latency show up in the trace? Tcp/ip and your browser on its own should not saturate your pipe.. So your doing something or have tweaked something that is allowing it to do that.

Again why everyone does not have the problem is they are not saturating their pipe.. I assure you if the pipe is full everyone will have the same issues your seeing. High latency..

Don't forget your UPLOAD pipe!!! Your download might have room, but what about your upload.. And if you don't have to query for something - its in your cache then its quite possible you would not notice any problems with loading sites, etc..

" I still received the DNS error randomly and had to wait 10 minutes."

And did you do a simple query to check? Did you ping your dns server even? Its quite possible you have multiple issues going on - sometimes your saturating your pipe, other times maybe your dns just sucks..

I have gone over how to test your dns multiple times already - but you have yet to post one query...

You have to TEST what is not working when its not working - if you want to get to the root of your problem.

What? You told me to get Bind and I posted the results. It looked the same as yours. I also created that DNS file you mentioned. Also, i posted Ping and Tracert. So I have not posted one query? Really?

I cannot test from my iPad. By the time I get any computer turned on the issue would be resolved anyway.

This told me your asking your local box 192.168.0.1 for dns - but you did not ask it anything specific, and it took 243ms to get a response for the root servers which points to a really BAD connection, or a saturated line.

So for me to do the same query for the roots.. It took 24 ms.. Yours was 10 times that.. What is normal when your not having issues.. When your having an issue you need to query for the site your having an issue with, for example www.neowin.net

dig www.neowin.net

Do you get a response, what is it - was it cached or authoritative? And the +trace tag on it if having issues so can see what is happening. Where there might be a problem.

I don't have my ipad handy but you can do a dns query from it with the right app installed - when I get home I will take a look at the app I use for such things.

if you have an issue talking to 8.8.8.8 directly is most likely your line or connection, if that works great buy your router takes for ever or does not answer - where is your router asking, your isp? Do a query to that IP directly.. If that works and your router still does not answer or takes a long time - something not right with the routers dns forwarder, etc.

Well just an update, it has not happened in two weeks. I even tried to break it one day (all computers and devices downloading/streaming various things at the same time to congest the line). No problems....Weird.